1/14/2018

I wake up facing a ‘Bazinga’ poster on my wall every morning, before drifting towards the kitchen, which is stripped bare of any formal or spatial indulgences except a horizontal work surface. When I moved in, this house was a hollow shell. It took us nearly a month to transform it into a familiar space. In a few months, my collection of knick-knacks, figurines, Hello Kitty merchandise and the like, invaded the house. There is no ‘real’ utilisation or function of these things except they are just there. Their eclectic existence enhances the personal value of the space they are in.

In other words, they mark familiar territory in our minds.

“Ornamentation is wasted manpower”, declared Viennese
architect Adolf Loos. He went further, differentiating ‘ornament’ from
‘ornamentation’, the former meaning purposeful or functional adornment while
the latter referring to superfluous decoration or add-ons, without which buildings
would continue to stand unperturbed. In other words, stripping a structure of
anything that did not directly or indirectly work towards binding its various
parts together, was perfectly acceptable. In 1908, when he published ‘Ornament
and Verbrechen’ (Ornament and Crime), Loos primarily appealed to capitalists, stating
ornamentation as a wastage of capital. He went further, relating cultural
progress to minimal ornamentation. In other words, he believed that society
gave up superficial decoration and as a consequence, progressed culturally. Hence,
for man to reach the zenith of progress, all ornamentation would have to be
banned and craftsmen discouraged to practise their craft. Loos’ opinion
fermented into his articles and building projects that were indeed realised,
much to the shock and initial disbelief of people with a Classical idea of
beauty in architecture.

If ornamentation were to be discarded, wouldn't everything
turn generic in its bland existence? While not exactly favoring ornamentation
as one sees it around these days, it would not be improper to question the
relevance of self without ornamentation. Is it not ornamentation that allows
personal idiosyncrasies and individuality to co-exist with societal norms? As a
society, how accommodating are we to alternate mindsets? Under the garb of
ornamentation, the main cause of concern is tolerance. For instance, when Loos
designed the Café Museum, people who viewed Modernist ideals as obsolete and a
short-lived reaction soon to die out, derided it as Café Nihilism. The
plainness was too blunt for their taste and at the time, since they had not
been exposed to a statement so monumental and oft-seen in their daily lives,
they decided to press harder for a familiar neo-Classical style. While heavily
decorated fluted columns and cherubs floating around ribbons and sashes of
silken cloth register themselves as a rigid category in our minds, so do white
rectilinear forms with strips of openings for picturesque views. Both these
visual sets, belong to a pre-set category in our minds- the former as Classical
architecture and the latter as Modern architecture. (Note that it is
architecture we talk about here, and not Architecture)

Going back in time, why were cave paintings like those found
at Lascaux, France, made? Apart from the many possible explanations, one that
cannot be ruled out, alludes to the need for aesthetic stimulation of the
visual senses. During every civilisation, there have been periods where the
arts flourished and hence, archaeologists happened to gather material culture. Ornamentation
existed long before our time, just not viewed as we do currently. Are we, as a
species, hard-wired to objectively agree regarding aesthetics? Probably not. Similarly,
can we question the integrity of a building by categorising it as wrong or
right architecture?

The One and Only Royal Mirage, Dubai, United Arab Emirates

The function of a building or a house is to nurture its
inhabitants allowing adequate sunlight, ventilation and a habitat conducive to
individual development. If it fulfills these requirements with or without
ornamentation, does it matter? A dwelling; whether a cave or an igloo or a mud
or concrete house, facilitates its inhabitants to grow, multiply their kind,
sheltering them from any natural threats. Our earliest shelter, the cave,
qualifies the Corbusian ‘machine for living’ ideal as it permitted all the
activities of the early man. However, just as Loos and other Modernists
identified and dictated a certain module for the ‘modern house’ which if followed,
would lead to generic neighbourhoods and colonies where people would be forced
to accept a certain formal language irrespective of their cultural differences
or sensitivities.

Human behaviour and settlement patterns have varied over time
and as physical and social conditions change, these will continue to morph
further into newer aesthetic choices. Every built structure is a witness to a
certain period of historical development and gives away a piece of information
about its dwellers. Whether an individual chooses to formally recreate the
Parthenon for a market place, a museum or a governmental office, is a personal
decision. It does have implications in the public sphere but one has to
remember that any new style or the revival of an older style has always created
outrage amongst the general masses and theorists.

The role of a building in any setting also includes engaging
the city in a formal and spatial discourse, creating enriching experiences for
onlookers. Bypassing the debate about ornamentation is the human need to reach
out for the familiar. Any change, whether revolutions or economic recessions,
create a domino effect of fear, insecurity and a need for re-invention and
renovation. Architectural styles were a reflection of the turbulent times of change
during the past eras, not an end in themselves but a means to an end. As Robert
Venturi had stated in his 1966 essay, “I like complexity and contradiction in
architecture.” To each, his own.

Yasra Daud Khoker

Yasra Daud Khoker has a degree in Interior Design from the American University of Sharjah. She is an art critic and artist who divides her time between Dubai and Jaipur. Yasra can be contacted at yasrakhoker@yahoo.com